No one ever said spreading Managed Democracy in Helldivers 2 would be easy, but it’s safe to say we were only expecting to be facing off against bugs and bots – not assassin-like meteors raining from the sky. While no doubt delivering some epic moments, the game’s planetary hazards can get annoying at times, so it’s great news that the new Helldivers 2 update slams down the nerf hammer on these pesky events and brings many more improvements too.
The latest Helldivers 2 patch notes make for great reading, with improvements to patrol spawns, fixes to the EXO-45 exosuit, and various bug fixes that make one of the best co-op games on PS5 even better. However, it’s the nerf to planetary hazards that will no doubt bring a massive sigh of relief to many eager ‘divers jumping into dangerous locations.
First up, the meteor shower event has received a reduced spawn rate, explosion radius, damage, and speed, making them less frequent and less devastating when they do show up. Likewise, volcanic activity has also been tamed with similar nerfs, reducing its spawn rate, explosion radius, and rock velocity.
Across the board, planetary hazards now have “adjusted spawn rates” and “should now spawn less frequently during missions.” This means tremors, meteor showers, volcanic activity, fire tornados, and ion storms should ruin your day slightly less often.
Although it’s undoubtedly one of the best PS5 games right now, getting assassinated by Mother Nature does get quite frustrating. We’ve certainly been killed by raining meteors a number of times when racing towards the evacuation site carrying ample samples and few reinforcements left.
Another pain point fixed in the latest update to the new PS5 game is patrol spawn behaviors. According to the patch notes, patrols are now less likely to spawn directly next to players. When these enemy reinforcements would pop up right next to you, not only did it look jarring, but it also caused chaos that felt rather unfair at times. This goes hand in hand with the recent nerf to Terminid tanks and other improvements to the spawn system.
With reports of flying bugs now causing terror on the battlefield, as well as teases of a Dune-like mega-worm enemy, Star Wars AT-AT-like Automatons, and the horrifying new Illuminate faction rearing its ugly head, these changes are greatly appreciated. After all, the Helldivers 2 game master seems to have plenty up their sleeve, especially now that they’ve been reinforced with an “emergency expansion.”
The full Helldivers 2 update 1.000.103 patch notes are as follows:
- Balanced and adjusted spawn rates for the various planet hazards including tremors, meteor showers, volcanic activity, fire tornados, and ion storms. Hazards should now spawn less frequently during missions.
- Meteor Shower has received the following changes in addition to reduced spawn rate:
- Reduced explosion radius
- Reduced meteor damage slightly
- Reduced meteor velocity slightly
- Meteor color has been changed slightly to try and make it easier to spot.
- Volcanic Activity has received the following changes in addition to reduced spawn rate:
- Reduced explosion radius
- Reduced rock velocity slightly
- Lighting on Fenrir III has been adjusted to be a bit less bright to improve visibility during meteor showers.
- Fixes:
- Reduced incidents of patrols spawning on players.
- Exosuit no longer destroys itself when firing a missile while turning.
- Exosuit retains its melee functionality, even when damaged.
- Crash fixes:
- When ALT+Tabbing in fullscreen mode.
- After changing voice over language.
- PS5 boot issue.
- Using a stim inside of an Exosuit while wielding a grenade.
- When joining an ongoing mission.
- When idling on the title screen.
- Shots from arc-based weapons, such as ‘Blitzer’ shotgun and ‘AC-8 Arc Thrower’ stratagem now count towards “Shots fired” and “Shots hit” stats.
- Fixed network desync issue with downed Automaton dropships.
- Fixed Elgato Stream Deck Foot Pedal support.
- Known issues:
- Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the Friend Requests tab.
- Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
- Players cannot unblock players that were not in their Friends list beforehand.
- Players cannot befriend players with Steam names shorter than 3 characters.
- Hellpod steering close to large or important objects is currently not functioning as intended, resulting in steering being disabled in a large area around the object.
- Online features are not functioning when console language is set to Ukrainian.
- Players may be unable to select loadout when joining a multiplayer via an activity card.
- Planet liberation reaches 100% at the end of every Defend mission.
- Drowning in deep water with a Vitality Booster equipped puts Helldiver in a broken state.
- Exosuits will sometimes be delivered in a damaged or broken state.
- Stratagem beam might attach itself to an enemy but it will deploy to its original location.
- Pink artifacts may appear in the sky when setting off large explosions.
- Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.
- Sometimes the player’s loadout customizations will reset after restarting the game.
With all these great changes on the way and new content sneakily being added constantly, it’s no wonder that Helldivers 2 is one of the hottest PS5 exclusives right now. In fact, Helldivers 2 is full of surprises, such as the fact that its ultimate mascot has been playing alongside you this whole time, or the absurd strategies players have come up with.
While you suit up for your next dive, take a look at the juicy leaked PS5 Pro specs and find out why Sony is slamming the brakes on the PSVR2 after just one year.